I live in Los Angeles and I'm lucky enough to write about the thing I love most: movies. I'm a graduate of Vassar College and Northwestern University and for 15 years I worked at Forbes mostly covering the entertainment industry. Although I've moved into the world of corporate journalism, I still contribute blog posts here.

The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities

It’s been two years since Michael Jackson passed away at the age of 50 but the King of Pop’s earning power shows no sign of waning. For the second year in a row, Jackson tops our annual list of the Top-Earning Dead Celebrities. Over the past 12 months Jackson’s estate brought in $170 million from sales of his music and his stake in the Sony/ATV catalog. That’s a big drop from the $275 million Jackson earned in the previous 12 months but it’s still enough to make him the second highest-earning pop act over the past year, dead or alive, after U2.

The 15 people on our list earned a combined $366 million between October 2010 and October 2011, which just goes to show that death is not the end when it comes to celebrities.

Songwriters who own their own work usually fare best on our list because their catalogs can keep selling well long after they’ve passed away. But now there’s a new way for dead pop stars to earn big: Cirque Du Soleil.

Jackson headed out on tour again this month with the Cirque Du Soleil show Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour. If it’s successful, Jackson could net more touring in death than he did in life. Cirque and the King of Pop’s estate will split costs and profits evenly, and the cost of touring a Cirque show is less than that of a glitzy Michael Jackson round-the-world extravaganza. On top of that, the estate will collect performance royalties every night because the show uses his songs, most of which he has songwriting credits on. (See: Michael Jackson And The Economics Of Touring After Death)

The Cirque show Viva Elvis helped Elvis Presley rank second on our list with $55 million. Of course Presley’s iconic songs, like “Hound Dog” and “Heartbreak Hotel,” still sell well and fans flock to Graceland. But a long-running Vegas show where tickets sell for as much as $175 a pop definitely gooses earnings. John Lennon, who ties for fifth on our list with $12 million, and George Harrison, tied for 13th with $6 million, both also benefited from Cirque. The show Love, based on Beatles music, has been running at The Mirage in Las Vegas since 2006.

For celebrities who don’t have a music catalog to profit from after death, it helps to have been incredibly glamorous. Elizabeth Taylor, who passed away in March, joins the list this year in fifth place (tied with Lennon) with $12 million. Most of that money comes from Taylor’s best-selling perfume White Diamonds. According to Euromonitor sales of the scent brought in $54 million in the U.S. alone in 2010. (See: Elizabeth Taylor: The Next Big Thing?)

Taylor’s estate is poised to earn much more in the coming months though when Christie’s auctions off the star’s jewels, art work and gowns starting Dec. 16. The jewels alone could bring in as much as $30 million. Taylor was so beloved that Christie’s has taken the items out on tour in the run-up to the auction.

Depending on how the executors of her estate decide to move forward with licensing her image, Taylor could soon become as big as Marilyn Monroe, who returns to our list with $27 million in earnings over the past year, ranking her third. Earlier this year Authentic Brand Management bought the rights to Monroe’s estate. The company, which also holds the rights to Bob Marley’s estate, is now trying to revamp the star’s image by going for more highbrow licensing deals like upscale clothing, fragrances and cosmetics. (See: Marilyn Monroe Makeover) A line of Marilyn Monroe cafes is in the works and don’t be surprised to see Monroe starring in films again. She’s already appeared opposite Charlize Theron in an ad for J’Adore perfume.

To place on this year’s list a deceased celebrity had to have earned at least $6 million between October 2010 and October 2011. To compile our list, we spoke to agents, lawyers and other sources to estimate each star’s gross earnings (before taxes, management fees and other costs).

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In this case,Mr Jackson was killed by a doctor;he was found guilty.There is no proof Mr Jackson was an addict;only the word of his killer.So,that statement on Murray`s part is totally self serving.His autopsy showed no evidence of abuse of drugs,legal or otherwise.

Can anybody please answer this question for me, the Elvis Presley estate has been earning around $50 million per year for a long time now, so why did Lisa Marie Presley sell almost the entire rights to Elvis’ name and likeness for only $100 million back in 2004? His estate was pulling in somewhere in the range of $50 million per year or close to it even back in 2004? Can someone please explain this?

Good question. Lisa Marie sold the rights (but not all of them) in 2004 largely because the deal absolved her of $25 million in debt and gave her shares in the new company that would be managing the estate. Though Elvis has been pulling in revenues in the neighborhood of $50 million for years, there are still a lot of costs associated with operating Graceland, etc, and the deal gave the estate more access to badly-needed capital.

ok, thanks for answering the question, I kinda figured that the $50 million amount was before expenses such as upkeep for Graceland and etc. were deducted, but I still feel that there has to had been some major mismanagement on the part of Lisa Marie or Pricilla Presley or whoever ran the estate because the upkeep of Graceland can’t be that much, this estate has been earning millions per year since the early 80′s and has been earning about $40 million to $50 million per year the last ten years and they were in deep debt and had to sell off the bulk of the rights of the estate just to meet debt obligations, i think that could only happen if there was mismanagement

You are right jaris32, I would not blame Priscilla though even though I cannot stand the woman, she did a great job with the estate and it would not be where it is today without her and LMP would actually have had to work (I wish she had) if not for Priscilla saving it. Now if you notice it is when LMP took over that everything went down hill, regardless of whatever LMP’s excuse may be, at the end of the day she sold the business for money because she did not want to deal with the business, Priscilla was 60 at the time of that sale and probably knew that Lisa could not handle the business and so they looked for someone to buy it from them and manage it for her. It was not a good decision though because at that time LMP got shares that were worth $29 per share but by the time of the sale this year the company’s shares were worth just $5. Along with that she is not very smart and puts all the money into the cult of Scientology which is why they probably had debt in the first place. That deal was bad for LMP, because she even borrowed half a million dollars from the CKX in 2008 which means her finances are not exactly in great shape.

Interestingly, it looks like it’s gonna be a MJ vs EP battle for the next ten years as well. Here’s Forbes lists for the last ten years, showing how each did. The adjusted inflation data is mine, but can be easily corroborated.

Hey Dorothy Pomerantz, can you please do an article on the current value of Michael Jackson’s Estate, the media isn’t reporting the real value of his estate, they either report that the estate is in deep debt or they report a low value for the worth of the estate, Sony/Atv alone is worth $2 billion based on revenue of $500 million according to Time Magazine, you can read the article here http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1908185,00.html, also Michael’s Mijac catalogue has to be worth upwards of $350 million now with the huge increase in earnings and interest in Michael’s music, also Michael Jackson’s name and likeness alone has to be worth upwards of $1 billion because he is the most famous human on earth, Forbes previously valued Oprah’s brand as being worth $1 billion when Forbes increased her net worth by more than $1 billion from 2007 to 2008 in order to account for the value of her brand when calculating her net worth for their annual ranking of billionaires, anyway if you add up Michael’s Estate’s half ownership of Sony/Atv which is worth $1 billion for half of the $2 billion total value, plus $350 million for Mijac, plus $500 million for the value of Michael Jackson’s brand (I think it is worth $1 billion but I don’t want to over value it), plus at least $50 million for antiques, artwork, furnishings, the Encino property, and the estate’s remaining interest in Neverland Valley Ranch, that totals at least $1.9 Billion, plus Michael’s estate paid off a lot of the debts so there’s probably only about $250 million in debts now, so $1.9 billion minus $250 million equals a net worth of $1.65 billion, it could be a little more or a little less but it is definitely over $1 billion, can you please report on this cause the rest of the media isn’t reporting the estate’s real value

Dorothy’s colleague Zack here — I cover music and did the Jackson numbers — I think you’re in the ballpark with those numbers. Good idea on trying to value the estate on the whole, I’ll start thinking about that. In the meantime, check out my story on MJ’s new Cirque show: http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2011/10/25/michael-jackson-and-the-economics-of-touring-after-death/

If anyone affiliated with Michael Jackson’s estate is reading this you guys really need to work on a Michael Jackson theme park attraction next, they just made a very successful Harry Potter theme park recently and there is a Transformers theme park attraction currently in the works, per Forbes magazine Steven Speilberg makes $75 million per year to this day from his theme park deal for rides based on old movies such as Jurrasic Park, Disney already has the Captian Eo attraction, if a full Michael Jackson theme park was added to Disney it would be very profitable, they could have a thriller themed roller coaster, gift shops with Michael Jackson themed merchandise, a 3-D showing of the MoonWalker movie, and etc., plus it could be expanded to the Disney parks in Japan and Europe where Michael Jackson is also very popular, this could easily bring in $75 million per year to the estate for a long time

If anyone affiliated with Michael Jackson’s estate is reading this you guys really need to work on a Michael Jackson theme park attraction next, they just made a very successful Harry Potter theme park recently and there is a Transformers theme park attraction currently in the works, per Forbes magazine Steven Speilberg makes $75 million per year to this day from his theme park deal for rides based on old movies such as Jurrasic Park, Disney already has the Captian Eo attraction, if a full Michael Jackson theme park was added to Disney it would be very profitable, they could have a thriller themed roller coaster, gift shops with Michael Jackson themed merchandise, a 3-D showing of the MoonWalker movie, and etc., plus it could be expanded to the Disney parks in Japan and Europe where Michael Jackson is also very popular, this could easily bring in $75 million per year to the estate for a long time.